‘Wolf and Bear’ and ‘Wiggling Words’ author Kate Rolfe will be at the Dukes Festival of Stories at Eaton House The Manor on November 21. Early Bird tickets from dukesfestivalof stories.com
Kate Rolfe is the award-winning creator of ‘Wiggling Words’ and ‘Wolf and Bear’. She was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Illustration and will be entrancing us at the Festival of Stories with ‘Let Your Words Wiggle!’ This is a subject that she is well-placed to speak about, having created books while working with the challenge of dyslexia.
Kate, from Framlingham, Suffolk, wrote and illustrated ‘Wiggling Words’ – a story about a child lost in a forest of letters. She worked in cyanotype – print making with sunlight, which is a really unusual and interesting method.
Speaking to the BBC in March, 2026, she said that working on a story about her dyslexia helped her with her own difficulties, adding: ‘When I first started making Wiggling Words, I was still trying to hide a little bit of how I was struggling. I felt like I was totally alone with it. And so I started making this artwork that just described how I felt when I was faced with a wall of words when I opened a book.’
In the same interview, she said that she hoped her ‘Latest book would help children with dyslexia or those struggling with learning to read. When all the letters fall out of the book the child characters use their imagination to build a whole world of letters.’
Do not miss Katie Rolfe at the Dukes Festival of Stories as she is such an engaging speaker for little ones! Early Bird Tickets at dukesfestivalof stories.com
